Heading in football: Dementia risk ‘not linked to players’ lifestyles’
Two former Premier League players – Gary Pallister and Steve Howie – tell us BBC Sport reported health concerns after years of heading the ball.
Howie, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said scans he underwent showed cognitive decline.
Leading campaigner Judith Gates of Head Safe Football has written to Culture Minister Lisa Nandy asking for heading to be declared a national health issue to protect the safety of future players.
Gates’ husband Bill, a former Middlesbrough defender, died last year aged 79 from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). She founded the Head Safe Football charity to raise awareness of the dangers of head impacts and the signs of head injuries.
The new research was funded by the Football Association, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research.
The study, published in the medical journal Jama Network Open, looked at the electronic health records of 11,984 former professional footballers and 35,952 matched individuals from the general Scottish population.
Researchers compared the two groups on key dementia risk factors, including smoking history, depression, alcohol-related conditions, diabetes, high blood pressure, hearing loss and obesity.
Overall, the team found similar or lower rates of these risk factors among former players.
Former professionals have a lower risk of alcohol-related diseases, smoking, diabetes and obesity. The study found they had similar risks of hearing loss, depression and high blood pressure compared with the general population.
Stewart told BBC Sport the report “really moves the conversation forward”.
He said: “What we see is that these football players are generally healthy people with good lifestyles.
“Their blood pressure is fine, their weight is fine, they don’t smoke, they don’t drink alcohol, but they do have dementia issues that are still present and we say it’s related to head injuries and that’s what we’re dealing with.”
The FA said: “We continue to invest in and support projects to better understand this area through objective, robust and thorough research.
“We have taken a number of proactive steps to review and address potential risk factors that may be associated with playing football, while ongoing research continues.”
The Professional Footballers’ Association, the union for professional footballers in England and Wales, has a dedicated brain health team to support former members who are concerned about their brain health and to educate current players about brain health in football.
September 2023 It launches the Football Brain Health Fund, An initial £1 million will be provided to help former players and their families affected by dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
